She’d almost hoped he might convince her that last night had meant something, but all he’d done at the ministry was reaffirm everything Cornelia had said about his arrogance and callous treatment of women. Mae wanted to think she’d transcended her Nordic upbringing, but she knew she hadn’t entirely shaken that sense of superiority her family had instilled. She’d been adored and led to believe she was special. She knew now that it wasn’t true, that it was just patrician arrogance. But enough men still fawned over her that she’d grown used to it and was therefore blindsided at being used by one of them. Too many people had tried to use her for various reasons in her life, and she thought she’d learned to spot them. Apparently not.

He was so convincing, she thought wistfully. Underneath all his charms, she’d been so sure she’d seen pain in him and even a legitimate sense of understanding for her own melancholy. But was it legitimate? Or was it an act? Mae no longer knew. All she knew was that her pride had been hurt and that it had felt good putting on the façade of a haughty Nordic debutante to hurt him back. And yet, even in the middle of arguing with him, her body had been so, so aware of his. Anger could flip to passion in a heartbeat.

It was a weakness. The best course now was to write him and that night off. She had an assignment—an unorthodox, bizarre assignment far from the field of battle—that they both needed to focus on now.

There was certainly more to the murders than the sensational news coverage had led her to believe. And she couldn’t ignore the feeling that there was more to it still. There’d been something big and unspoken hovering between Justin, Cornelia, and Francis. But what else could there be? Strange or not, the facts of the mission itself had been cut-and-dried. The potentially ritualistic nature of the murders required intervention from the servitors’ office, which would be able to examine things with a more global and religious-focused lens. And if there was a zealous murderer running around, increased security was absolutely necessary, thus explaining her presence.

They certainly seemed to have a high opinion of Justin’s skills—well, Francis Kyle did, at least. The guy had looked like he’d wanted Justin’s autograph. She almost couldn’t blame him. Justin’s reaction to the video and his analysis of the murder stats had been fascinating. There’d been no womanizing addict there. He’d been so intent, so completely consumed by just this brief introduction to the case, that she’d found it easy to believe he was the star servitor Francis and even reluctant Cornelia had claimed.

Mae’s ruminations were interrupted when she reached her stop in the theater district. Here, the night was brilliant and alive, a far cry from sedated suburbia. Streetlamps and bright screens painted everything with flickering, colored light outside, chasing away the evening’s darkness. Even on a weeknight, this area stayed busy with theatergoers and those seeking nightlife in the many restaurants and clubs. Mae navigated through the crowds and crossed the street on a sky bridge a few blocks away, which led her to a bar whose window screen proclaimed that lavender martinis were on special tonight.

She had tried to act like she was conducting important business on her ego earlier, but really, she’d been arranging a bar meet-up. Her eyes easily adjusted as she entered the dark establishment, which had no overhead lights. All the illumination came from purple neon underneath the tables and bar’s edge. It cast a ghostly glow on the trendy customers as they sat at high glass-topped tables, chatting among themselves while also scoping out newcomers. It was one of those see-and-be-seen places. Watching the bartenders scurry and make drinks reminded her of Panama and the antiquated drink machine. They’d been popular in the RUNA once, but “real people” were in vogue now.

Val and Dag were already there, having taken over a table by the front window. They were in casual mode, jeans and T-shirts, which earned them a couple of disapproving looks from the more elegantly dressed patrons. At least they hadn’t worn their uniforms—which they did on occasion, simply to create a scene and disconcert those around them. The last time they’d done it, their waitress had been so intimidated that she’d dropped a tray of drinks—twice. Mae had felt obligated to leave a generous tip by way of apology.

Dag whistled when he saw her. “Look at you,” he said. “Going to the country club?”

“They wear dresses to country clubs,” chastised Val, as though she were some kind of expert. “Our girl looks more like she’s been giving boardroom presentations.”

“You’re both wrong.” Mae sat down and immediately brought up the table’s touch-screen menu and ordered a mojito without even checking out anything else.

“Well?” asked Val. Both she and Dag were watching Mae expectantly. They hadn’t seen her since the funeral. “Where have you been? Not in detainment, obviously. We thought maybe they’d lent you out to the police. Or had you giving tours of the military museum.”

“Well, that may be yet to come,” Mae said. “But this week I’ve been in the provinces.”

Her friends looked impressed. “You were in action already?” asked Dag.

Mae decided beating up those backwoods thugs didn’t really count as action. “I was, uh, running an errand in Panama.”

A waiter came by with her mojito, as well as another round for Val and Dag. They were only social drinking tonight, or else they would’ve had at least ten drinks in front of them. If you could take down several drinks within a couple of minutes, you could briefly keep ahead of the implant’s quick ability to metabolize alcohol. It achieved a very, very short-lived buzz that was usually over in ten minutes. Prætorians called it “slamming the implant.”

Justin and Tessa’s presence in the RUNA wasn’t something that could be kept secret, so Mae gave them a quick—and extremely edited—rundown of her Panamanian adventures and glossed over the murders, simply saying she was working as Justin’s bodyguard. Judging from her friends’ faces, Mae wasn’t the only one who found those events bizarre.

“What the fuck did he do that was bad enough to get exiled?” asked Dag.

Val traced the rim of her glass, dark eyes lost in thought. “And yet apparently wasn’t bad enough to keep him from coming back.”

“They don’t tell me stuff like that,” Mae said, trying to act like it didn’t bother her. “I’m just the messenger.”

Dag brightened. “Still, a lot more exciting than monument duty. Not as honorable, of course.”

That caught Mae by surprise. “Monument duty? What are you watching?”

“The National Gardens,” Val said. She knocked back half her drink. Maybe she wasn’t slamming the implant, but she wasn’t really holding back either. Mae was tempted herself, after drinking that Panamanian swill.

“Both of you are in the gardens?” she asked. Her friends nodded together.

“There are a bunch of Scarlets there right now.” Val ticked them off on her fingers. “Whitetree, Mason, Chow, Makarova…”

“Lucky,” muttered Mae, not voicing what the others were thinking.

If they’d assigned a Scarlet team to the capital, she might have been in it—if not for recent events, of course. The most celebrated prætorian posts were in places with active fighting, like the provinces and borderlands. Those were around-the-clock missions and also the ones prætorians died in. Prætorians were also rotated through the capital, however, to guard senators and important national monuments and buildings. It was relatively sedate work for soldiers like them, but there was power in it. The prætorians were a symbol of the RUNA’s strength and perfection. Putting prætorians on display in Vancouver reassured citizens of their country’s superiority, even if it also sometimes frightened them. Maybe that wasn’t a bad thing, though. Capital duty had shifts like ordinary jobs, meaning prætorians received a lot of time off. Having a significant amount of one’s cohort on hand was an unusual perk since they were normally split and scattered around the world.

Val and Dag were fully aware that they’d landed a very sweet assignment, but Dag diplomatically tried to make Mae feel better. “I’m sure you’ll see cool stuff with a servitor. Maybe you’ll get to take down some crazy cult. I saw this one on the news that was sacrificing animals and having naked moonlight dances.” He turned wistful. “I wouldn’t mind a little of that. The naked part, that is. Not the animal part. I heard they tried to stone the servitor.”

Mae gave him a smile for his effort. “Cults usually get taken down with paperwork instead of brute force. They only show the sensational ones on TV.”

“Well, just remember, it could’ve been a lot worse for you.” Val’s voice was light, but there was a warning note in it. Nobody was mentioning the funeral, but they were all thinking about it. “And hey, how crazy is it that you’ll be with a mysterious exile and a provincial girl? That’s drama right there. You can’t make that stuff up.”

“No,” agreed Mae, thinking back on what she’d seen. “You really can’t.”

“Is he cute?” asked Val, with a look Mae knew all too well.

“Don’t get any ideas.” Mae wasn’t going to breathe a word about what had happened with Justin. There’d be no living with Val or Dag then. “I don’t need you showing up at his door.”

Val’s eyes lit up. “Ah, he is cute.”

Dag shook his head. “Ignore her. She hasn’t been laid in, like, a week. It’s a wonder she’s still alive.”

He was joking, although prætorians did tend to have particularly active sex lives. It was another side effect of the natural physical responses that the implant kicked into overdrive. Justin had been Mae’s first sex in almost six months, an astonishingly long span for prætorians, but after Porfirio, she hadn’t really felt up to it right away.

Val elbowed Dag for the joke, but at least Mae had the answer to a question she’d wondered about. Val and Dag were constantly on-and-off-again, making it hard to keep track of their current status. Apparently they were off right now. That always made Mae a little sad, but at least the two stayed friendly.